{"id":419,"date":"2015-05-05T13:00:33","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T18:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?page_id=419"},"modified":"2019-07-14T17:45:19","modified_gmt":"2019-07-14T22:45:19","slug":"faq","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?page_id=419","title":{"rendered":"FAQ"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can I put an ad on your site? Would you be interested in joining our affiliate program?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Short answer: No.<\/p>\n

More detailed answer: I started this blog to serve as my personal coffee diary, so that I could have a record of what I liked and didn’t like about various coffee origins. I model my site after companies like Cook’s Illustrated and Consumer Reports, where they take no ad revenue and put out objectively reasoned opinions. My integrity is extremely important to me and for that reason, I will not promote any product for pay, nor will I take advertisement dollars.<\/p>\n

I’m a coffee roaster. If I send you some beans, will you review my coffee?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Send me an email through the contact form on this\u00a0website. In exchange for complimentary beans, I will publish a 100% unbiased review, done exactly the same way that I write up reviews for beans that I’ve purchased with my own money. Please ensure the roast date is on the packaging and endeavor to send FRESH beans – I only buy and review beans that are within 2 weeks of their roast date, so if you send beans that are older than this, I won’t be able to describe them accurately to readers because they’ll be out of their peak freshness window by the time I get to taste them.<\/p>\n

I tend to favor light-roasted coffee so while I will review coffees that are medium-roasted or darker, you may not get feedback you like from me if the beans are darker than Full City.<\/p>\n

Good grief, lady, how much coffee do you drink in a day???<\/strong><\/p>\n

Surprisingly, not much! I typically drink 8-12 oz of pourover or two doubleshots of espresso each morning. If I am taste-testing a new bag of beans, I will sample a bit from all brew methods, but I rarely will drink the whole cup (unless it’s REALLY good).<\/p>\n

How do you decide what to review?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am always on the lookout for new coffee roasters, and I visit coffee shops local to where I live to see what they have in stock that is fresh (ideally less than a week old at most). There are also roasters from whom I will mail-order beans. Occasionally, friends will get me beans as gifts.<\/p>\n

I try not to publish “bad” reviews – I try to be more objective about how I evaluate the coffee by saying, “This coffee tastes like cigarette ash” vs. “OMG EW.” After all, what if you like the taste of cigarette ash? I imagine though that it’s pretty easy to tell when I like a coffee vs. when I do not.<\/p>\n

What’s the best coffee?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Too complicated and loaded of a question to answer. It’s like trying to determine who the best rock band of all time is. We could spend a lifetime arguing this topic.<\/p>\n

What’s YOUR\u00a0favorite coffee?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Visit the Hall of Fame<\/a> category on this site to get an idea of which coffees I rate most highly.<\/p>\n

Do you get headaches when you don’t drink coffee?<\/strong><\/p>\n

YES. I get the sort of headaches that takes half a day and 4 Advil to make me not want to crawl into a hole and die. It’s surprising considering I drink such a relatively small amount, but I’m rather dependent on the stuff.<\/p>\n

What’s the worst coffee you’ve ever had?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I will admit, the worst coffee I’ve ever had was one that I made. It was back when I worked as a bartender for a while during grad school, and a customer asked for a cup of coffee. Now, I was new, and I had never used a commercial coffee machine – just the Mr. Coffee type things where you have to put water in the reservoir. I had not been taught how to operate the coffee maker, and I didn’t know it was plumbed in, so I found some place in the machine to pour in water. I have no idea where to this day. The coffee that came out looked weak, but we were quite busy so I filled up a mug and served it. The customer left a little while later with most of the mug untouched. I don’t blame him at all, because at that point, I poured myself a bit from the pot and realized it tasted like dirty dishwater. To whoever you are: I’m so sorry!!! I wish you had complained!<\/p>\n

Who is this “Shutterbug” you keep referring to?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That would be my husband, who has his own photography site<\/a>. I don’t refer to him by name just because I think it’s funnier that way – no particular privacy issues or concerns, really. As far as I know, he doesn’t talk about me on his site, but if he did, I’d have no problem being the Caffeine Queen or Latte L’amour or something like that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can I put an ad on your site? Would you be interested in joining our affiliate program? Short answer: No. More detailed answer: I started this blog to serve as my personal coffee diary, so that I could have a record of what I liked and didn’t like about various coffee origins. I model my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"acf":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?page_id=2","url_meta":{"origin":419,"position":0},"title":"About Margaret","date":"March 5, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I am a freelance musician in the Dallas\/Fort Worth area (flute\/piccolo), and while I am not a trained coffee professional, I treat my coffee with the same passion and attention to detail that I bring to my work. Music isn't simply a diversion from everyday life. The music that composers\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/tn_IMG-1364-e1547675077389.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":55,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?page_id=55","url_meta":{"origin":419,"position":1},"title":"Contact","date":"March 5, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Got a question for me? Want me to review a particular roaster? Just want to talk coffee? Drop me a line below. Please note: I am not taking requests for sponsorships, partnerships, advertising, or any other sort of collaboration at this time, including coffee bean reviews. I simply don't have\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?page_id=15","url_meta":{"origin":419,"position":2},"title":"Geek corner","date":"March 5, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"All the stats on my coffee gear, for the curious (updated November 2022). Grinders: Baratza Vario (only for espresso), Baratza Virtuoso (for all other coffee methods) Espresso Machine: Quick Mill Silvano paired with a Rancilio bottomless portafilter, 58 mm VST precision baskets, ridged (18 g and 20 g sizes). Tamper:\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/IMG-2101-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P5QIia-6L","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/419"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6004,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/419\/revisions\/6004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}